03

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida has been awarded a $6.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation to lead a coalition of universities and colleges throughout the Southeast as part of a program to increase the number of domestic minority students earning doctorates in science, engineering and mathematics.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Payday loan companies — which make high-cost loans to cash-strapped people – target military members and their families, according to a study co-authored by a University of Florida law professor.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — “Into Africa” rather than “Out of Africa” could well be the better description of how certain mammals originated and spread across the world, according to a University of Florida scientist, who has found the first evidence for origins in North America of a mammal thought to be endemic to Africa.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Gum disease has been linked to hardening of the arteries for nearly a decade, and scientists have long fingered a gang of oral bacteria as the obvious suspects behind many cases of the vessel-clogging killer.

Gainesville, Fla. — The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be, says a University of Florida researcher whose findings show that the evolution of horses had more twists and turns than previously thought.

LAKE ALFRED, Fla. — While the state’s citrus canker eradication program has been mired in controversy and legal action – resulting in a stop-and-go approach to removing infected trees – a new University of Florida study indicates the benefits of the eradication program outweigh the costs eight to one.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Patients who hear the dreaded words “you have cancer” invariably look forward to the day the doctor tells them “you’re cured.” But University of Florida researchers say survival often comes at its own price — the mind may need mending even after the body heals.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Americans believe parents bear some responsibility when their children break the law but are reluctant to throw the book at mom and dad when the kids go awry, says a University of Florida researcher.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Ecologists know that when it comes to habitats, size matters, and now a new study finds that contrary to earlier beliefs, that maxim holds true right down to the tiny plants at the bottom of many oceanic and freshwater food chains.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The engineers who built the massive external fuel tank that will power the shuttle Discovery into orbit this spring used sophisticated X-ray detectors developed by UF researchers to reduce the chance of a defect in the foam insulation covering the tank.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A genetic tool with the potential to identify which trauma and burn patients are most likely to become seriously ill has worked consistently in a wide range of experimental clinical settings — an important hurdle to overcome before the method is routinely used in emergency rooms and intensive care units.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Call it a chemical crystal ball. A new approach to predict whether a drug in development is likely to work and which dose is best could get antibiotics to market faster and more cheaply, say University of Florida researchers.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Carloads of young people are dusting off the flip-flops, icing down the beer and heading to warmer climes this month for the annual ritual of alcohol-fueled partying known as Spring Break. The participants include many college and high school students under the drinking age who all too often are able to purchase alcoholic beverages illegally.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For centuries, the Zuni Pueblo Indian tribe of New Mexico has been caring for eagles and collecting their feathers for use in tribal ceremonies. An aviary designed by a University of Florida professor ensures that tradition will continue for generations to come.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Kyle Cavanaugh, associate vice president for human resources at the University of Texas at Austin, has been named the University of Florida’s first vice president for human resources, UF President Bernie Machen announced today. Cavanaugh will assume the position May 1.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The engineers who built the massive external fuel tank that will power the shuttle Discovery into orbit this spring used sophisticated X-ray detectors developed by UF researchers to reduce the chance of a defect in the foam insulation covering the tank.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Superfund sites are infamous for their hazardous, stubborn chemical wastes, but one cleanup solution may be to put the right mix of plants and microbes together in the soil, according to a new University of Florida study.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — "Tell me where it hurts" is the classic opening to many a doctor's examination, and University of Florida researchers have given it a digital twist. The scientists have created a virtual reality "patient" that can help medical students master the subtle art of the patient-doctor interview.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Open records laws in North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Indiana provide the best access to members of the public requesting records, according to new findings compiled by University of Florida researchers.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Tossing out tobacco, noshing nutritious foods and exercising are heart healthy habits key to slashing stroke and heart attack risk. But some patients also must take medicines when these efforts aren’t enough to rein in high blood pressure, long linked to the debilitating, often deadly condition.

Ernst Mayr, the world renowned evolutionary biologist who died recently at the age of 100, spent most of the 20th Century studying and promoting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. But if you've followed American media in recent months, you might think Mayr and his colleagues were failures, and that evolutionary theory is suspect, full of holes in evidence and logic, and kind of a religion of its own.